While a federal judge reviewed evidence behind a conspiracy charge in the case, jury selection was delayed Monday in the trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who is facing charges that he tried to defraud Medicaid with others in 1999, his first year in office. Siegelman, whose re-election bid was defeated in 2002, has called the charges politically-motivated attacks by Republican opponents.

Siegelman, former chief of staff Paul Hamrick, and Phillip Bobo, a physician, are charged with trying to fix bids so that Bobo's company could secure contracts to provide health care to poor pregnant women in rural areas of the state. The Montgomery Advertiser has more on the delay, and provides background information on the case.